Star Legends: Vanguard
by Battlegrinder
Summary: A novelization based on the hit Spacetime studios game Star Legends. Vance Dawes is a soldier of fortune, traveling along the frontier of United Colonial space aboard the UCS Blackstar. He is hired to take on a number of brutal missions, pitting him against alien species and renegade humans alike with only his wits, skills, and a handful of fellow mercenaries for help.
1. Chapter 1: Transport

**"Something stirred within us, so long ago; when we looked upon the star filled sky innocent and unaware of the threats that lay beyond. The stars spoke our destiny.**

**"We colonized those distant worlds with abandon. Through our mastery of art and science, and our undeniable will to overcome adversity, we built a society founded on hope and promise. We discovered and studied the remains of civilizations that came before; we learned from their triumphs and their mistakes. We found new allies among the stars, and we used our technology to build servants, who became something more. We found that during our endless journey, we had become something more as well. Our future was assured: the rising star of a society on the cusp of apotheosis.**

**"Then came the Scorn, and their Prophecy, and their War; a Black Star rising to eclipse our own.**

**"So many colonies destroyed, so many friends and lovers dead. We have paid in blood to learn the true nature of the galaxy. We had seen horror and felt despair, but we were not yet beaten." **

If I hadn't already disliked Slouch-O Productions after they nearly got me killed several dozen times, their melodramatic and poorly researched approach "documentary" of the Scorn War would have instilled a fair amount of loathing just on its own. The handful of lines above are practically tame compared to the rest of the series. Unfortunately, the series is also one of the only accounts of the war to be widely distributed, aside from classified military files.

I suppose the main reason I hate the series aside from its soap-opera tone is how I was portrayed in it. I've lost count of how many times the phrase "The Heroic Sir Vance Dawes" was tossed around. I'm not so modest as to deny that I was some kind of hero, but I was also a mercenary, and the main reason I did half the stuff they credit me with was because someone was paying me to do it, and most of the other half was pure self-preservation. The knighthood was heroics, I'll give them that, but I got into that mess in the first place by being a gun-for-hire. And if they'd stuck to that, and remembered to toss some credit to the other people who were also out there fighting and dying, I might have just groaned about the melodrama and moved on. Instead they erased all mention of a bunch of good people and whitewashed me into some kind of knight in shining armor (Though given how shiny golemtech armor could get if you turned off the camouflage and gave it some polish, I suppose they technically have a point).

So it's time I set the record straight, give credit where credit is due, and fill in some of the gaps Slouch-O left out when they made that awful series. And besides, I might as well get my memoirs written out before someone who has a score to settle gets around to tracking me down (speaking of which, never shove a mafia boss into a sewage processing plant. You would not believe how long those guys hold a grudge).

I'll also be drawing on a few secondary sources throughout my story, for clarity and exposition of relevant events. And I've also attached a glossary, since a lot of people won't be familiar with the military and technical terminology that's become second nature to me, or may be from beyond the UC, and unfamiliar with elements of human culture and history.

My first encounter with the chain of events and shadowy designs that would ultimately lead up to the war was also my first job out on the frontier, but my trip out to the frontier had its own influence on my later career, so I'll start my story there. It was March of 2368, and after seven years of mercenary work, I'd been allowed to pack my things and catch a shuttle bound for the _UCS Blackstar_. It was much tougher to get a Frontier Operations License back then, with memories of the Uprisings still fresh in the minds of many. So if you wanted a shot at the lucrative contracts out on the edge of colonized space, The Powers That Be had to be pretty sure that you were going to be on the right side if another revolt broke out. Which meant spending a few years in the more civilized portions of UC space, staying on the right side of the law, or close to it.

After several years of body guarding, bounty hunting, private security, and occasionally knocking some heads together as part of some mega-corporation power struggle, someone had evidently decided that I wasn't turncoat material. I'd packed my stuff (both personal possessions and a collection of military-grade hardware) and booked passage to one of the colonial support carriers that worked to keep peace, civil order, and the human way of life. Sometimes that meant medical supplies and construction aid, and sometimes it meant a few companies of Marines. And sometimes, it meant a few soldiers of fortune like me.

The _Blackstar_ had a jumgate installed aboard, but it was down for maintenance at the time, forcing me to seek alternative transport. I wound up on a cargo shuttle making a delivery run to the _Blackstar_. We were able to take the jumpgate network as far as the Magellan colony, and then we had to make it the rest of the way using the shuttle's jump drive. We were one or two jumps away when things went pear-shaped.

I was going over the email that had motivated me to try and get onto the _Blackstar_ as fast as possible. Dynastar, a mega-corporation with considerable holdings on the massive starship, was having trouble in one of their offices, and needed a few mercs to go in and sort it out. I was checking out a few of the theories I'd come up with when I heard the gunfire. It was only a short burst, and sounded like it was fired from an assault rifle. As I got up from my seat and moved toward the door separating the shuttle's small passenger compartment from the rest of the ship, I listened for any more gunshots. I heard none. I guessed that whoever was shooting had done so to intimidate the crew and hasten a surrender, rather than as part of combat. I'd have heard a lot more gunfire otherwise.

I reached the door at the same time as several other passengers realized what the sound they'd just heard was, and started panicking. I tried the door only to discover it was locked, and was trying to decide how to get it open when the intercom came to life. Someone calling himself "Harry Hijack", gave us the usual pirate lecture, about how they had the ship, no hero stuff, you won't be harmed if you don't resist, and so on. I'd ran into pirates before (but not as often as I would in the next few years), and was disinclined to take them at their word. Pirates with a policy of "leave no witnesses" were a lot more common than pirates without one.

The door and lock separating us from the crew compartment were both inexpensive, and since my lock picking gear was in the cargo bay with the rest of my equipment, I kicked it open, causing the door to smack into something on the other side of it with a fair amount of force. I suppose I could have found a hairpin or something and picked it that way, but finesse was never really my strong suit. I stepped through the doorway, and saw two pirates on the other side. One was on the ground clutching a broken nose, and his buddy was a few paces behind him. _Oh, so that's what I hit with the door_, I thought as I stepped over the downed pirates rushing toward the other one.

Pirate number two was trying to wrestle his arc cannon into position and aim it at me, but wasn't able to get the bulky weapon up in time. He had just gotten his finger inside the trigger guard when I grabbed the cannon's barrel and yanked it up. His wrist cracked loudly as I wrenched the barrel up to point at the ceiling, and his nose made a similar cracking sound as I continued pushing the business end of the cannon around and into his face. He staggered back, dropping the cannon and reaching for his sidearm. He clawed his amp pistol out of its holster, raised it and fired off a shot, but fortunately the pain from his broken nose and wrist was throwing off his aim, and the bolt smacked into the wall several feet to my right. Before he could correct his aim, I grabbed the gun shoved it under his chin. His eyes widened as he tried to switch the safety on, but I found the trigger and fired before he had the chance.

I yanked the pistol out of the deceased pirate's hands and spun around to face his comrade. The pirate was staggering to his feet, bringing his rifle around to aim at me. I raised the amp pistol and shot him in the face. As he collapsed, I checked the nearby area to confirm that the two of them had been alone. A quick search revealed no additional hijackers, leaving me a few minutes to plan my next move before someone noticed they were missing.

I spotted an opened floor hatch nearby, leading to what I guessed was the cargo bay. I decided to check it out. The last thing I wanted was to have someone sneak up behind be while I was dealing with the other pirates. As I walked over to the hatch, I retrieved a rifle from one of the pirates, and gave the handgun to one of the other passengers, along with strict instructions to stay where he was until the situation was dealt with.

My guess about the hatch's function proved correct as I climbed a ladder into the cargo bay. Fortunately the bay was empty of pirates. I did find an open shipping container, one that certainly smelled like a fair number of people had been stuffed into it for a while. _So that's how the hijackers got onboard._ _The old shipping-container-full-of-pirates trick, _I thought. _Clever_.

After trying and failing to find the crates containing my weapons and equipment, I climbed back up the passenger deck. I searched the dead pirates for anything I could use, coming up with a few magazines for the rifle, a repeater heavy pistol, some body armor (irritatingly it was only a grade 3 chest plate, rather than a full suit), the arc cannon my first target had been trying to wield, and a few other odds and ends. I considered taking the arc cannon in place of my rifle, but taking an explosive-based anti-armor weapon into a hostage situation seemed like a spectacularly bad idea, especially considering how dangerous it was to use a squad support weapon without a squad to back you up, as the illustrated by the fate of the cannon's last owner.

The rest of the passenger deck was deserted, save for me and the passengers. I found the ladder to the next deck and quietly ascended. I found myself in the engineering section. It was laid out a lot like the company-sized dropships I'd become all too familiar with during my Marine days, with a wide open space housing exposed engine components, maintenance supplies, spare parts, tools, and sometimes spare cargo. The flight deck access ladder was nearby, down a small hallway at the far side of the engineering section. I could see several doorways down the hallway as well. They would normally be storage rooms for parts and supplies, but a lot of companies used them as crew cabins.

I spotted the shuttle's crew in one corner, being guarded by three more pirates. Thankfully they were busy keeping an eye on the crew, so I was able to sneak behind a bulky piece of machinery and line up a shot. How the pirates failed to notice a 6'4, retired Marine commando sneaking up on them, I'll never know, but they paid the price for their lack of vigilance when I opened fire. Two of them dropped in the initial burst, and the third died a moment later when I stepped out of my concealment and shot him in the head. One of the pirates stationed on the flight deck popped the hatch open and started climbing down the ladder, only to get shot in the back when he was halfway down. He fell off and hit the deck plates with an echoing clang.

I'd just turned around again to start releasing the crew when something slammed into my armor and knocked me to the ground. I rolled over, and saw the brigand I'd blasted off the ladder staggering to his feet, aiming his rifle at me. I spotted the outlines of body armor underneath his clothing, and realized how he'd survived my initial round of gunfire. I realized I wouldn't have time to draw and aim either of my own firearms before he shot me, so I tried something desperate. I grabbed the combat knife I'd scavenged from one of the other pirates, and threw it at my attacker.

I didn't have the first clue about how to use a throwing knife, let alone how to throw an unbalanced combat knife as if it was a throwing knife, but my opponent didn't know that. He dived out of the way and took cover inside one of the crew cabins next to the ladder. I quickly got to my feet and ran toward the pirate's hiding place. He was crouching just inside, then out of the doorway and started shooting. I scrambled behind the nearest chunk of machinery and returned fire. _I hope this isn't something important_, I thought, as the hijacker's riddled my hiding spot with bullets. We spent a few moments popping in and out of cover to shoot at each other, but neither one of us could seem to hit the other. Stalemate.

I remembered a trick my squad had fallen for during the uprisings, and decided to see if my opponent would also believe it. I leaned out and fire a few shots, then thumbed the safety on. I kept squeezing the trigger, eliciting only a series of metallic clicks. It sounded a lot like a jammed rifle. The pirate heard, and stepped out of the room with malicious grin. He took a few steps toward me, before I flicked the safety back off and emptied the clip into his chest. Grade 3 armor is tough stuff, but it isn't that tough. He doubled over and sank to the ground, a bewildered expression on his face. After he was down, I rolled him over onto his back and shot him twice in the head. "This time, stay down." I said.

I spent a few moments getting the crew out of their restraints and checking to see if they had any useful information. All three was unharmed, if a little shaken up. The pilot (cargo shuttles didn't have large enough crews that a traditional "captain" would be required) had managed to get a rough headcount, and according to him there should only be one pirate left. Since I'd cleared the rest of the shuttle, any remaining pirates would be on the flight deck. I worked on relieving the downed pirates of any useful equipment while interviewing the crew, and the shuttle's engineer paled as I heft a few grenades. I asked him what the problem was.

"Please be careful with those," he said, staring at the grenades. "The flight deck has a lot of sensitive instruments and controls, and if something exploded up there….we might end up getting stuck out here." He started looking nauseous, though I couldn't tell if that was a result of seeing several people die right before his eyes or the thought of dying alone and forgotten in the darkness of the void. Maybe both.

"I'll keep that in mind." I said as I finished securing the grenades and spare ammo I'd recovered. I was tempted to leave the grenades behind, but something told me I'd need them. "You might want to take cover somewhere while I secure the flight deck." I told the crew. I walked over to the ladder and tried to think of a way to scale it without being killed by someone waiting at the top. I really wished that I'd been able to find my own armor, instead of having to rely on stuff I'd salvaged. Belatedly I realized that the loadmaster might have known where my equipment had been stored, but by the time I thought to ask her, she and the other two crew members had taken my advice and found somewhere else to be.

If I started climbing the ladder, the remaining pirate or pirates could easily shoot me while I was climbing and unable to easily return fire, and my salvaged torso armor wouldn't protect me. I needed something to distract my would-be ambusher. Some stun grenades, smoke grenades, a decoy, tear gas, a jar full of angry bees, something to get his/her attention and hold it for a few seconds. I was about to toss a frag grenade up the ladder and hope for the best when I realized something. I was in a room packed with spare parts, tools, and maintenance supplies. _Let's see if my MacGyver skills are as good as I think they are_, I thought to myself as I started digging around trying to find materials I could use.

I managed to find a few chunks of magnesium, a few inches of piping, and several rolls of duct tape. I set that stuff aside, and started tinkering with one of my grenades. I wasn't familiar with the exact type, but it was similar to the ones I'd been trained to use, so the process of removing the fuse was pretty much the same. Removing the plastic explosive material inside the grenade was trickier, but after a few tense moments I was able to remove a small amount of explosive. After that part, assembling the rest of my DIY stun grenade was easy.

Returning to the ladder, I judged the distance and timing for my throw. I carefully removed the pin from my improvised grenade, trying not to dislodge any part of the fragile device. I lifted my hand to let the spoon fly off, waited two seconds, threw the grenade, and ran for the ladder. The grenade went off, eliciting a long stream of various obscenities from above. I frantically scaled the ladder and climbed onto the flight deck, dodging a burst of unaimed gunfire as I scrambled out of the hatch. I felt a faint tugging sensation as I cleared the ladder, and suspected I'd just been grazed by a round or two. A quick glance around revealed the presence of only one pirate.

The flight deck was much larger than I'd been expecting. The pilot and copilot seats were just as I'd thought, crammed up near the windows and surrounded my various buttons, switches, and various technical and status readouts. What I hadn't imagined was the open space behind the "flight" part of the flight deck. It wasn't a large space, maybe the size of an average living room. A few transport crates were stacked around the room, and combined with the layout and design of the room, created the impression of a small cargo bay (As it turns out, that's exactly what it was. Many transports had small cargo bays built into an easily accessible part of the hull, intended to let the shuttle dock with a larger starship and offload cargo without having to land and open the main cargo door).

The pirate I'd hit with the flashbang had mostly recovered, raising his rifle and spraying moderately accurate gunfire in my direction. I crouched behind a crate and returned fire, getting my first good look at him as I did so. He was a fairly large guy, with a nose that looked like it had been broken a few times, and a collection of facial scars. While he had a formidable appearance, the fact that his face was so severely battered indicated he'd lost a fair share of fights. What I was more worried about was the heavy grade 4 armor he wore. My grade 4 suit was nearly impervious to small arms fire, and while his suit had clearly seen better days, it would still be tough to take out.

I fired another burst, aiming for the joint between his oversized helmet and his torso armor, but missed, hitting his shoulder instead. Before I could adjust my aim, my rifle jerked back and nearly flew out of my hands. I managed to hang onto it, and prepared to fire another burst, aiming for one of the hijacker's legs this time. I squeezed the trigger and….nothing happened. Believing the rifle had jammed, I crouched down to examine the rifle, and my blood ran cold as I surveyed the damage. One of the pirate's bullets had slammed into the side of the rifle, punching through the casing into the gun's inner workings. The firing mechanism was completely destroyed, along with several other key components. There was no way I could repair the rifle, not without dozens of spare parts and several specialized tools. _Ok, this is bad, but not unsalvageable. It'll be tricky, but I can take him out with my repeater, _I thought as I reached for the handgun. It wasn't there. I realized with mounting horror that the cheap hostler I'd used to secure the repeater must have been sheared off as climbed up the ladder, the faint tug I'd felt while climbing had been the hostler getting ripped away.

I quickly checked the rest of my gear. I still had a knife, two frag grenades, and a half dozen magazines for my disabled rifle. _Great. I can't use the grenades, and I'll never be able to cut through his armor with the knife. I need a new plan._ I poked my head out for a quick look, and then ducked back down as a hail of gunfire almost took it off. "Come on out of there!" shouted the pirate. "I promise I won't hurt ya!" He continued, before breaking out into laughter. His voice sounded familiar, and after a moment I realized he was the one who had spoken over the intercom earlier. "Harry Hijack" would figure out I was unarmed sooner or later, and once he did, my chances of surviving this fight would be non-existent. I shoved that possibility aside and tried to come up with a plan. After a moment, I came up with one. A near-suicidal plan, but it was the only one I had.

I hefted my disabled rifle and shot to my feet, hurling the gun toward Harry. He staggered back as 14 pounds of assault rifle smacked into him, and I used the distraction to charge in and get close. Harry started bringing his rifle around as I lunged forward and grabbed onto it. I wrenched the rifle away from me just as he fired, sending most of the rounds into the cargo bay wall. At least a few rounds were on target, hammering into my torso armor and almost breaking my grip on Harry's rifle. As we struggled over the gun, I hit the magazine release and jammed my finger on the trigger, ejecting all remaining ammo from the rifle.

Just because the gun was out of bullets didn't mean it was harmless, however. I found that out for myself as Harry managed to break my grip on the rifle, slam the butt of the gun into my stomach. I staggered back, gasping for breath. I recovered and charged again, and this time I was able to knock Harry off his feet. I grabbed his helmet and started prying it open. Harry's helmet was a Modular or "flip-up" design, where the entire front faceplate was hinged (The design was descended from civilian motorcycle helmets of the same name). It was more comfortable, could accommodate more advanced optics and HUD systems, and the helmet was often much stronger than a conventional design. But it was also much easier to pry a flip-up open than it was to remove a normal helmet.

By the time Harry realized what I was up to, I'd already gotten the face plate open. I snatched one of my grenades, pulled the pin, dropped it into the open helmet, and flipped the helmet closed just before the grenade went off. The explosion shattered the helmet's visor and sent a spray of shrapnel, blood, and bone flying out. The rest of the blast was contained by the helmet, fortunately.

"Ok everyone, the ship is secure. I'd appreciate it if the crew could make their way back to the flight deck, because I have no idea how to fly this thing," I announced over the intercom, after a few moments of searching for it. "Bring a mop."

After a few minutes of cleaning up, we were on our way. We made it to our rendezvous with the _UCS Blackstar _a few hours later, and I got my first look at the ship that would be my home for the next several years. The _Blackstar _was a colonial support carrier, and while I'd heard CSCs were big, I hadn't realized how big. Figures like "two miles from port to starboard, four mile from bow to stern, and dorsal to ventral height of three miles" don't convey the sheer _scale_ of something like that.

Sadly, that moment is pretty much the only fond memory I have from the whole experience. The _Blackstar _sent over several squads of Marines after the shuttle crew reported the attempted hijacking, and the ensuing search held up our docking by almost an hour. After the ship was pronounced clear of pirates, everyone had to go through a debriefing session. Well, everyone except for me. I wound up getting tossed into an interrogation room to be harasses for a few hours. Initially it wasn't so bad, but then someone found my personnel file, and I had to deal with the usual range of awkward questions. "Can you explain this charge of 'Wanton Vehicular Property Damage'? How about 'Reckless Misuse of Heavy Machinery'? Wait, you leveled an _entire town_!?" And so on.

Eventually I was cleared of any involvement and released. Moving into my new quarters was as challenging as it always was, given how equipment I'd dragged along with me. After all, no self-respecting soldier of fortune wants to miss out on job because they don't have climbing gear, thermal sensors, stun grenades or some other equipment that the mission requires (and as I discovered early in my career, a lot of equipment is very hard to obtain on short notice). So we tend to build huge stockpiles of every conceivable gizmo, "just in case". But after renting several hover-sleds, finding a cargo tram willing to haul it, I managed to get everything delivered to my new home.

I'd been able to get my hands on the lease to a fairly large living space, thanks to a few profitable jobs in the months before I moved, and the fact that someone in the _Blackstar_'s housing office owed me a favor. Compared to planetary accommodations, it was only the size of small condo, but on a starship, even one the size of a CSC, it was huge. It had two bedrooms (one of which I'd converted into an armory),a bathroom, a decent sized living room, and a kitchen/dining room. I hadn't been able to get a window, and I wasn't a huge fan of the grey, bare metal walls, but I was still living like a king compared to most of the ship's residents.

Unpacking my equipment and possessions took about an hour. Assembling the furniture that would hold all of it took about 60 million years. As far as I know, mankind is the only species to create a gun with only 6 parts, and a desk with 70. I was giving serious thought to throwing my entertainment center out the nearest airlock when my computer informed me of an urgent email. Seizing on the distraction, I went over to my desk and had a look. The late and unlamented "Harry Hijack" (As far as I know, no one was ever able to discover is real name) had a price on his head. Ten Thousand credits, as I recall. I spent a few minutes checking to see if he had any close friends who might come looking for revenge, and came up with nothing. _Good. My enemies list is long enough as it is_. I thought.

A few hours later, when I was almost done moving in, a courier dropped off a package. Opening the box, I found it contained a battered flip-up helmet with a shattered visor. _Ok, that's a little weird. _According to the note that came with the box, the helmet had been removed from the transport with the rest of the bodies, then for some unfathomable reason it was cleaned up and sent back to the crew. Not knowing what to do with it, the crew elected to send it to me. I doubted that anyone would be interested in buying some rustboot pirate's busted helmet, so I decided I might as well hang onto it. I had a shelf in the living room set aside from storing my collected mementos and souvenirs, and that was where the helmet ended up. I spent a few minutes unpacking the other items I'd accumulated over my career while I was there. A picture of my squad during the last days of the uprising, the handful of medals I'd earned during and after that conflict, my sword, a worn olive drab chestplate with the insignia of the Marine Commandos stenciled on it, and other items from my ten year service in the USMC were the first items I unpacked. Next came a pair of jet-black pauldrons inlaid with the logo of Silver Shield Protection and Investigation, a few weapons collected from captured mafia and yakuza thugs, and a few photos, all artifacts from my time as Silver Shield bodyguard and agent. I placed a white, skull-like galactic executioner mask with a bullet hole in the left eyepiece on the shelf as well, a relic from another incident in my past. The last few items were various mementos from my current, freelance career, everything from keys to a dump truck to the taxidermied head of a Vular drone. The last thing to go on the shelf was a chunk of scrap metal from the Victoria Orbital Elevator. It didn't look like much, but the twisted, partly melted metal bar had changed my life. I put it down before the memories it conjured could overwhelm me.

After another few minutes I finished unpacking. Despite the early hour (about eight o'clock ship's time), I decided to turn in. Dynastar had scheduled the mission briefing for noon tomorrow, and I had no intention of heading into battle with a case of sleep deprivation. If you'd told me then that my actions over the next few days would start a sequence of events that would shape the future of the galaxy, I'd have sent you to have you head examined. But you'd be right.


	2. Chapter 2: Welcome to Dynastar

Like all subcultures and professions, people employed in the field of "doing violent things for money" have different viewpoints on one another. Soldiers take the viewpoint that anyone who failed to join their particular branch of service "wasn't up to the challenge", though to be fair they do have more respect for rival militaries than the other groups have for their own competition. Freelance and Guild mercenaries don't get along, as both groups feel the other is stealing contracts/influence/manpower/ect that they don't deserve. Private Investigators and bounty hunters have a solid rivalry, one that has been known to result in armed conflict one occasion. Despite the mutual enmity, there was one group that everyone hated: Private Security. Everyone had their own reasons (Personally, I despised them because they seemed unable to do their job of keeping intruders out of places and lab-spawned monstrosities in, necessitating someone like me to go in and clean up the mess), but I've yet to meet someone in my line of work who has a warm place in his heart for rent-a-cops.

I suspect that the guards stationed outside Dynastar's office complex knew what I thought of them, despite my best efforts to be civil. After running his third check on my credentials and authorization, the surly lead guard finally handed me back my PDA and directed me inside. He wasn't quite able to prevent a note of resentment from slipping into his voice as he gave directions to the conference room. _He probably doesn't like the company hiring a bunch of mercenaries to do what he feels is his job_, I thought. _Too bad. If he'd done his job right in the first place, Dynastar wouldn't have needed to hire me._

There wasn't much ground to cover between the main entrance and the conference room, so my protracted security check hadn't cost me much time. Several other mercs had arrived at the conference room first (which upon closer inspection had clearly not been built to serve as such. Judging by the smooth metal floor and the piles of equipment shoved to the sides of the room, we were standing in a hastily converted storage room), and I spent the time before the meeting idly chatting. At about twelve hundred ten, a few Dynastar guards entered the room, followed by a blond, executive looking man. I'd spent enough hours wearing suits to recognize that his was an expensive brand, and I'd spent enough time wearing body armor under my suit to fail to notice he was doing the same. He cleared his throat and started talking.

"Ok, let's get this show on the road. I'm Daniel Hawthorne, the head of Dynastar's R&D facility here on the Blackstar. Now that you're all here, I can tell you what you've been hired to do.

"Dynastar has an R&D facility and office complex aboard the Blackstar. However, three days ago our offices were attacked and seized by forces unknown. Our security staff took heavy losses, but was able to contain the intruders inside the research wing and a few sections of the office. Unfortunately, due to causalities sustained during the attack, as well as the defection of a portion of our own staff, we lack the necessary manpower to retake the complex. That's where you come in." Hawthorne was about to continue, but someone else interjected before he could do so.

"Why not use the Blackstar's Marine contingent take care of the situation? This is the kind of situation that they're trained for and equipped to handle." The speaker was Mrs. Nakamura (I never got a chance to ask for her full name), one of the apparently novice sharpshooters. "Why not call the cops?" was a very common question, but most experienced mercs knew the answer, and most experienced corporate officers had fielded it dozens of times. Watching Hawthorne squirm, it appeared that however competent an organizer he might be (getting a dozen mercs hired and transported, not to mention the background checks required to let us operate inside sensitive areas, all within three days of the initial attack was by no means an easy task), he was evidently rather green. I decided to step in and get the briefing back on track.

"Whatever Dynastar was doing down there, at least some of it involves doing something that the UC would find questionable, and possible illegal. If the Marines go down there and find out, Dynastar could get sucked into a multi-billion dollar legal battle." I decided to leave out the UCMC's mostly undeserved reputation for causing an excessive amount collateral damage.

Hawthorne seemed both relieved to be off the hook and curious as to how I'd figured it out. Another indication that he hadn't dealt with mercenaries very often. Most civilians think mercs aren't very smart. Generally, that's false, for the same reason chess players rarely act on impulse; we both work in fields that don't give you many chances to screw up. The mercenary world is very Darwinian, where the smartest and the toughest survive, and the rest get eaten (literally, in many cases). After a few moments, Hawthorne started speaking again.

"Mr. Dawes's explanation is correct. None of our work here is illegal, but a fair amount of it involves doing things that fall into a legal grey area. Due to that, and the fact that we don't want word of exactly what happened here to get out, calling in the UC military was not an option. For that same reason, all of you were required to sign a standard non-disclosure agreement as part of your contract.

"Now, as I was saying earlier, we have two tasks that need to be accomplished. First, our office complex must be retaken and secured, and secondly, someone must do the same with our R&D facility. Enough of our security staff survived the initial attack to support a push into the complex, but the specialized squads that would lead a counterattack were lost during the initial attack. That will be your job." He activated a holo-projector, which displayed a layout of the complex and information regarding the surviving security staff. "This is all the information we have available. I'll leave the planning to you, this whole situation is far outside my own expertise." He introduced us to the interim security chief, a gruff but reasonably capable fellow by the name of Howard, and left.

It took about two hours to develop a plan, and another thirty minutes to get the security troops positioned. The plan itself was fairly simple. Two teams of mercenaries (one sweeping through the offices, the other going into the labs) would go in first, punching through enemy lines and sowing as much destruction and chaos as possible. Following a few minutes behind would be the security force, mopping up the confused survivors of the initial attack and securing the area. Eventually the mercenary team would get bogged down as the other side diverted more personal to containing them, but those units would have to be transferred from another part of the complex, creating weak points for the security troops to punch though. Reinforcements would be shifted to containing the guards, letting the mercenaries advance again, and hopefully we would be able to repeat the whole sequence over and over until the complex was secured.

I was part of the four person squad (technically, we were only the size of UCMC fireteam, but our functional role was closer to that of a squad) sent into the labs. At the time, we thought that the labyrinthine office complex would be the toughest part, so the plan was to send a smaller squad of more skilled mercs into the labs and draw manpower out of the offices, lessening the pressure on the larger, greener office team. As the plan was finalized, the two mercenary teams rushed to our assigned areas. My group was still finalizing our organization on the way over. Specifically, we were decided who should be in charge. Squad leaders were normally selected ahead of time, but for this slapdash operation, that hadn't happened. We compared experiences and careers, trying to find out who was most suited for the task. I wound up with the job, by virtue of being the most experienced when it came to combating people and because I'd already had leadership experience as a UCMC Sergeant.

After spending a few minutes resolving the leadership issue, we were ready to go. Unfortunately, the security troops who would be supporting our push took significantly longer to get mobilized. We'd planned to start the counter-attack twenty minutes after we left the conference room, but it took the guards almost an hour to fully mobilize. There's an old saying about no battle plan surviving first contact with the enemy. I'd have settled for one the survived contact with our allies. While we waited, I started chatting with the rest of the team, getting a better idea of what skills they had and what they could do. Like most mercenaries, we were a pretty diverse lot, with a wide range of backgrounds, histories, and skills.

Karaai Horoshi was our medic and tech expert, and the only women on the team. She managed to have a striking figure, even in body armor. She had long, dark hair, blue eyes, and one of those faces that just seems familiar, looks which elicited a never-ending stream of "have we met before?" comments from various people, either seriously wondering or flirting. She'd been on track to be a veterinarian, before a Vular infestation turned her home colony of Tyran into a battleground, and she was pressed into service as a field medic in a group of refugees during the evacuation. By the time she made it off-world, Karaai had become very good at patching people up and killing Vular, a skill set that lead her to turn mercenary once the UC decided to slag Tyran rather than lose thousands of soldiers retaking it. She'd picked up her technical skills after that point, some via experiences, some via training, and some from her girlfriend, an engineer she'd met during the Numa Prime outbreak a few years back. All in all, she was an extremely competent woman, and I would have suggested her for command if she'd had more experience going up against people.

Leeroy Jenkins was a sharpshooter, who'd recently left his career as a police sniper. He never told me what happened, but I'd heard a few stories about an incident where a police sniper shot a suspect in cold blood. The suspect was definitely guilty of something very nasty, but the police couldn't get enough evidence to convict, and one of them lost his patience and took the law into his own hands. I can't say for sure if Leeroy was that man, but the few details he let slip matched. Perhaps because of his training as a sniper, Leeroy wasn't a very aggressive individual, and preferred to hang back and let a situation fully develop before getting involved. But despite my initial doubts about someone so new to mercenary work coming along, I would find Leeroy's stellar aim and high-powered rifle very useful in the near future.

Adrian Grey was the third and last member of the squad. Despite being about my age, his hair had already lost its color and turned silver, because of some peculiarity of his home world. He'd served in the UCM for several years and risen to the rank of corporal, before growing bored and going freelance. Grey was a trained infantry soldier, and unlike the rest of the squad, he didn't have the specialist training that many soldiers did. In many ways that made him more flexible than experts like me, who tend to treat every problem as if the only solution is derived from their particular skill set. I've lost track of how many times I've caught myself trying to solve a problem using explosives or heavy weapons without considering other options. Much like Karaai, he was almost command material, but lacked the experience or leadership skills.

Grey and I were comparing our different experiences in with the UC military when Howard radioed in and reported that the last group of guards was ready to move, and signaled for a general advance. I lead my team into the first section of the labs, the Welcome Center. The welcome center wasn't functionally part of the lab complex, and instead served as a general purpose PR center, serving both the corporate offices and the labs. According to the information Dynastar had given us, neither Dynastar nor the mutinous security staff had any interest in trying to hold the area, the former preferring to barricade the entrance instead of wasting manpower holding the complex, and the latter deploying within the far more defensible security center, though the renegade guards were reportedly still patrolling the welcome center.

That mutual disinterest was probably why the welcome center was so intact. The grey metal walls and dark blue carpeting were intact for the most part, with only the occasional bloodstain or bullet hole to indicate there had even been a disturbance. The entire center had a very grim feeling to it, the kind of creepy ambiance you feel when walking through an empty theme park or shopping center, somewhere that should be full of people going about their lives but just _isn't. _

I shook my head and took a deep breath, focusing on the mission instead of my growing discontent. I wasn't claustrophobic, but after spending much of my career slogging through narrow corridors and hallways full of people trying to kill me I'd built up a solid distaste for confided spaces. It didn't help that so far my squad had yet to encounter another living soul after several minutes of searching. They say the only thing worse than thinking you're alone in the dark is knowing you aren't, and the fact that we knew for certain that the rogue guards did have a presence here, but hadn't yet found any sign of it, was starting to make us all a little jumpy.

Entering a darkened corridor, we stumbled upon a downed guard, and stopped to check the body. Karaai's boots crunched on broken glass as she crouched down to make sure he was dead, and some subconscious instinct of mine blared out a warning. "Take cover!" I shouted, and just as I hollered out the warning someone on the far end of the hallway opened fire. We scrambled for cover, and all of us managed to find somewhere to take shelter from the gunfire. I reached into my combat vest yanked out a flare. Leaning out of the office I'd dived into, I tossed it down the hallway, and its blazing red light revealed three renegade security guards crouching behind a crude barricade of shipping crates and scrap metal. One of our ambushers was wielding a machine gun, and the massive weapon had us pinned down.

"Leeroy, take out the gunner!" I ordered. "I'll give you an opening!" I continued, dropping my arc cannon and unslinging my rifle. I stepped out into the corridor and opened fire, riddling one of the guards with bullets and catching the attention of the other two. A few rounds from the machine gun smacked into my armor, before the gunner's head exploded as Leeroy took his shot. Without the heavy weapon to keep us suppressed and both of his comrades dead, the last guard tried to make a run for safety, only to be cut down by my squad's combined firepower.

"How did you know they were there?" Asked Karaai. "I didn't see a thing until you tossed that flare."

Thinking back to the start of the ambush, I realized what had triggered my realization of danger. "There was glass scattered around the hallway, even though none of the lighting was broken, and the body was just left lying out in the middle of the room, instead of being removed or shoved to the side so it wouldn't get underfoot during patrols." I pointed to the crude barricade our attackers had constructed. "I realized that someone had left the body out in the corridor to attract interest, and scattered glass around to make noise when someone stopped to examine the dead guy."

"That' a pretty clever trick, for a bunch of rent-a-cops." Said Adrian. "Still doesn't explain how we couldn't see them until they started shooting."

"No, but this might." Replied Karaai. She pointed at the barricade, which on closer examination was shrouded by some kind of brown cloth. "I've heard rumors about this stuff. It was supposed to be part of a next-gen stealth suit, and is almost impossible to see using conventional sensors without using active scan. It worked pretty well, but then the side effects started manifesting."

"What do you mean, 'side effects'?" asked Leeroy.

"After prolonged use, it melted the wearer's skin off. It wasn't lethal, but from what I heard most of the users wished it was."

I grabbed a corner of the shroud and yanked it, balling the cloth up into a pile and tossed it into a corner. "The guy who made this stuff, he wasn't a Dr. Rhoden, by any chance?" I asked.

"I think so, why?"

"It's a long story, I'll tell you some other time." I replied.

After finding some spare ammo and equipment stashed in the barricade and distributing it, we moved on. Resistance was light as we pushed forward, the few guards we ran across were unprepared and uncoordinated. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for the traitorous guards to figure out was happening and start fighting back. Howard radioed in to inform us that the general counterattack was bogging down, and that we'd actually lost ground in a few places.

"The attack is stalling out, we need to pick up the pace and give these guys a target to focus on. Double time!" I ordered. We picked up the pace, only to run into a massive, sealed blast door block our path. "Karaai, get this door open!" I said, pointing to a command console mounted along one wall. She nodded and ran over to the console, and after a few seconds she was able to override the security lockdown and open the door. The massive door split along the middle, retracting its top and bottom halves into the floor and ceiling. At the same time, a section of the wall next to us opened up as well, and a team of security guards spilled through to hidden doorway and charged.

I raised my arc cannon, and fired a shell into the lead guard. The shell's fuse must have been a bit off, because instead of detonating just after impact, it punched clean through him, and slammed into the fellow behind him. Then it exploded. The shell must have set off something the guy was carrying, because the blast created by the shell's detonation was way too big to be the work of one shell. The shrapnel from that explosion killed yet another guard, and knocked two more to the ground. They died a second later as Adrian hosed them down with an extended burst, and I saw Leeroy take down a man trying to drag a wounded comrade to cover.

I spotted a cluster of enemies who were still on their feet, and lined up a shot. Before I could fire, something smacked into the side of my armor, and an instant later I was thrown off my feet by an explosion. Dazed, I got to my knees and turned to face the direction the shot had come from, and found myself staring at the still-opened blast door. The gap between the two halves of the door was nearly a meter wide now, and a dozen guards were standing on the other side unloading on us. I saw a bullet punch through Leeroy's arm in a spray of blood, and realized we had only a few seconds before we were cut down. I frantically unbuckled on of my satchel charges and wound up for a throw. I hurled the charge through the gap and yanked the detonation out of my combat vest. "Get down! Fire in the hole!" I shouted. _Please don't let this kill us all_, I prayed. I flipped the detonator's safety cover up, put my thumb over the button, and set of the charge.

The next thing I remember was Karaai and Adrian helping me to my feet. Karaai said something to me, but when she moved her mouth, no sound came out. _Crap, I burst my eardrums_, I thought. Then Karaai started miming for me to take off my helmet. I complied, and to my relief as soon as I broke the hermetic seal my hearing returned. At the same time, the smell of blood filled my nose, mixed with smoke and a few other scents I didn't want to try and identify.

"Pass me that helmet, I think the explosion knocked out your external mic." Said Karaai. I handed it over. She gave it a quick exam, before setting down and with retrieving a few tools from the belt hanging around her waist. "Ok, the damage isn't too bad, I'll have this thing fixed shortly."

"Thanks." I looked toward the blast doors, and was shocked to see the extent of the damage. The upper half of the door had fallen back to its closed position, while the lower section had simply jammed in place. One closer inspection, I notice that the lower door had been bowed out to a noticeable degree. Leeroy walked over to have a look as well. "I thought blast doors were supposed to be resistant to explosives?"

"This kind of thing happens when you contract out to the lowest bidder." I replied.

"Maybe, or maybe it's because you used a demolition charge instead of a grenade. Does the word 'overkill' mean anything to you?" Chimed in Adrian.

"I'd much rather have 'way more than enough kill' then 'not quite enough kill', so while a grenade might not have been able to take out everyone firing on us, the demo charge definitely would. Besides, I don't like grenades. They're messy and imprecise, at best."

"Says the demolitions expert running around with an arc cannon. And unless I'm mistaken, you're carrying a pair of frag grenades in your vest, and your rifle has a grenade launcher attachment." Said Karaai.

"I said I don't like grenades, not that I won't use them. I prefer to use weapons that kill either only what they are aimed at, or everything in the area. Grenades rarely fit into either of those categories."

"Well, to each his own." She said. She passed me my helmet, and I snapped it back on again with palatable relief. Ever since Praetoria City, I'd been nervous without a layer of NBC protection between me and the atmosphere. "Can you hear me now?" asked Karaai. I nodded.

"Works great, thanks." I pointed toward the ruined blast doors. "Let's go. I'll take point." I said. Getting myself through the gap between the separate sections of blast doors was a bit tricky, but eventually I was able to wedge myself through. My solid, heavily reinforced body armor and above average size were an advantage in many situations, but they made getting through tight spaces a huge pain. Checking my map, I noted that the room I now stood in was the actually conference room. I supposed that accounted for the chamber's size, which was almost cavernous compared to the cramped hallways my squad had just fought through. Fortunately, it was also deserted, save for the bodies of the guards who'd ambushed (on second thought, "bodies" wouldn't really be the right word. Saying bodies implies that what I saw was recognizable as such, when really I could see were small bits of meat scattered all over the place). Leeroy was clearly trying to hold down his last meal as he surveyed the carnage. Karaai and I had a much easier time, we'd seen far worse things than this. Once everyone had crawled through the doors, I ordered the squad to get moving. There was an ugly _squishing_ noise as Leeroy stepped on a chunk of guards, and he started gagging.

"Calm down, it's not that bad. Just think about something else, like sausage making or raw hamburger or..."

"Adrian, cut it out! Cleaning this up is already going to require sandwich bags and mop, try not to add to the mess." I said.

In hindsight, I could have phrased that better. Leeroy had been teetering on the edge of getting sick since we entered the room, and my poorly worded comment put him over the edge. Ah, the glorious life of a mercenary. After Leeroy was done seeing if fast food tasted better on the way up (answer: No), we surged forward, boots clanking over the lab's metal-grated floors. The quiet, sound absorbing carpet had only been used in the welcome center, and for the rest of the mission we were pretty much forced to give up the element of surprise. We turned a corner, and then dived back around it when we were greeted by a hail of gunfire. "Anyone hit?" I asked. Fortunately, everyone had managed to avoid getting hit. I brought up the view from my helmet cam, and rewound the footage.

"Ok, it looks like there's only one guy. The computer has identified him as Clahtuu, the lab's former security chief. He's got what looks to be a pair of cable-powered automatic handguns. This might be tricky, but we can do it. One my count we'll...wait, what's that noise?" I said, hearing a few faint metallic clicks from up ahead.

Something clattered against a nearby wall. Several somethings. Several, small, cylindrical somethings. Someone yelled "Grenade!". The warning didn't do much good (we'd ran for cover as soon as we saw the grenades), but it did seem to motivate us to move faster. The grenades detonated about three seconds later, spewing shrapnel everywhere. I heard and felt a few fragments bounce off my armor, but none of them managed to find a weak point. Karaai and Leeroy were also unscathed, but Adrian wasn't so lucky. A few pieces of shrapnel had worked their way through his knee joint and immobilized his right leg.

"Karaai, take Adrian back down the hall and patch him up. Leeroy and I will handle this." I ordered. Karaai nodded, but I thought I detected a bit of hesitation in her step as she withdrew. Whatever her problem was, I'd have to deal with it later. I spent a few seconds coming up with a plan, and hoped Clahtuu wouldn't toss another round of grenades while we were talking.

After Leeroy was ready, I charged into the room ahead, skidding around the corner and running into a solid wall of gunfire. My suit was fairly resistant to handgun fire, but it hadn't been designed to withstand the sheer volume of fire I was taking. I was able to make it to the relative safety of a stack of cargo crates uninjured, but only just barely. My armor had taken dozens of hits, and sported several new dents and burn marks. Clahtuu kept firing, covering the walls around my stack with a collection of scorch marks. However, he was only firing at the sides of the pile, not over the top, allowing me to climb on top of the pile and return fire. My rifle was too bulky for me to maneuver it into position, so I was forced to draw my repeater and use it instead. Clahtuu turned around and hosed my position with automatic fire, forcing me to drop back behind the pile. I poked my repeater out from behind the stack and started firing blind, trying to slow Clahtuu down.

"Leeroy, hurry up! I'm not going to last much longer!" I hollered into my radio. There was initially no response, but a few seconds later I heard the echoing boom of Leeroy's rifle, and Clahtuu stopped firing. I cautiously stepped out into the open. Clahtuu was down, lying on the ground with a gaping hole in his helmet. "Nice shot." I said.

"Thanks. After you distracted him, it was pretty easy to take him down." Responded Leeroy.

'You're welcome." I replied. While we waited for Karaai and Adrian to catch up, I got in touch with Howard and told him about Clahtuu's demise.

"That's good to hear. I think he was coordinating the resistance, so with him gone, we should be able to speed up the advance. Glad to hear that scrawny little backstabber's dead." Said Howard.

Karaai and Adrian had arrived by the time I was done talking to Howard, and in my haste to make sure everyone was ready to go, I almost forgot to examine Clahtuu's body. Fortunately, Karaai reminded me. I crouched down and retrieved Clahtuu's PDA, hoping to find something useful. Most of the PDA's files were encrypted, but I could access the command and control system Clahtuu had been using to coordinate the defenders. A few keystrokes later, the entire battle net serving the turncoat guards had been shut down.

A quick search of the rest of the corpse revealed no additional information, but it did present a mystery. Howard had described his former superior as "scrawny", and a quick check of Clahtuu's personally file confirmed that he hadn't shared the muscular build common to most people in his field. But the man Leeroy had gunned down was built like a bodybuilder. I initially suspected that someone else had donned Clahtuu's armor, a theory that was disproved after a quick DNA test. "This doesn't make sense. His file photo was taken a few weeks ago, there's no way Clahtuu could have bulked up this much given so little time." Said Karaai.

Our search yield no additional clues, so I decided to resume our own advance, and take advantage of the disorganization I'd inflicted on our foes. "Keep any eye out for any computer terminals. I want to find out what Dynastar was working on." I said.

"Is that a good idea? I'm pretty sure Dynastar would take a dim view to us poking through their files. Sayings like "curiosity killed the cat" exist for a reason." Said Adrian.

"So do saying like "What you don't know can hurt you". Something's going on down here, and we need to find out what it was." I replied. I pointed to the sealed blast doors separating us from the security wing. "Let's roll."


	3. Glossary

Blackstar Glossary

Amp Weapons: Amplified light weapons technology works by creating a coherent beam of light, then filling the core of the beam with a hot, dense gas. The resulting beam is consequently slower than light, but has enough mass to do both kinetic and thermal damage. Amp weapons are accurate, compact, and have low recoil, but lack the lethality of newer plasma based weapons.

AOK Series Rifle: The AOK rifle is a very powerful kinetic weapon, renowned for its accuracy, reliability, firepower, and customizability. It uses both a conventional propellant charge and a compact railgun to fire a dense metal bullet. The AOK rifle is easy to modify and can mount a wide range of accessories and specialized equipment.

Arc Cannon: Arc cannons are high-power explosive weapons, capable of killing targets with only a single hit. Unlike most weapons, arc cannons fire a physical projectile (armor-piercing or fragmentation) instead of using directed energy technology. However, arc cannons are also heavy and difficult to wield, and have an inherently limited fire rate, limiting them to a squad support role only.

Body Armor: Body armor is grouped into several broad categories or grades. Grades 1 and 2 are light weight armor designed to withstand limited fire for a brief period. Grade 3 armor is standard military armor, designed to withstand moderate amounts of direct fire. Grade 4 is heavy duty armor, built to shrug off heavy fire for extended periods of time. Grade 5 armor is comparable in strength to the plating on a light tank, and almost always incorporates some form of powered armor technology.

Boost: Boost is a combat drug that supercharges a user's senses and augments their strength for a brief period. Boost was originally created a street drug, but was turned over to the government (in exchange for a full pardon) after its military potential became apparent. Using Boost carries a risk of self-injury, as most specie's skeletons are not capable of withstanding the amount of force muscles working at full capacity can exert for more than a few moments. It also carries a risk of addiction (not surprising, given its origin).

Colonial Support Carrier (CSC): A massive starship constructed by mankind to support colonization efforts on the fringe of human space, supplying everything from construction supplies to military aid. CSCs are the only vessels large enough to have a built in jumpgate, letting them serve as mobile hubs for the jumpgate network. After the Uprisings, CSCs were upgraded with substantially more powerful weapons, and most were crewed with military personal. 24 CSCs have been constructed, the first being the _Excelsior _and the most recent being the _Blackstar_.

Cycorp: Cycorp is a mega-corporation with a substantial market share in the civilian foodstuffs market, and is considered the foremost company in light-based technologies. Cycorp has recently overtaken Dynastar in handgun and SMG sales, thanks to technology obtained in a recent merger with Liber Corporation.

Dynastar: A mega-corporation with substantial holdings along the frontier, focused on production of military equipment like body armor, rifles, arc cannons, and various medical products.

Frontier Operations License: A document permitting individuals to act as mercenaries on the frontier of UC space.

Jumpdrive: Faster than light (FTL) travel is accomplished using a the jumpdrive, also known as the AWG or artificial Wormhole Generator, to create a tunnel through space connecting distant areas, letting a ship "jump" from one to other in an instant. Shipboard jumpdrive have a fairly modest range, and must be recharged after each jump.

Jumpgate: Jumpgate stations are the primary method of FTL travel, and consist of one or more AWGs linked to massive reactors. Each AWG/reactor pair is referred to as a jumpgate, and large stations can have more than a dozen gates linked together. A ship entering one jumpgate can hop to any other active jumpgate within the network. There are also ground based jumpgates, which allow one way transportation of dozens of people from one the jumpgate to any location. Ground based jumpgates are extremely rare, and exclusively used by the UC military.

Neural Reactive Stimulate (NRS): NRS is a powerful stimulate that accelerates the user's nerve and muscle impulses, resulting in the user briefly possessing speed and reflexes far beyond normal (some individuals have reported dodging bullets will using NRS, though such tales remain unconfirmed). NRS does have side effects if overused, including a degenerative nervous system disorder called nerve burnout. Like all such drugs, soldiers are encouraged not to use NRS in anything but a dire emergency.

PDA: Personal Data Assistant. A small computer used to store and access information, PDAs are used by almost everyone. PDAs can be used as a hacking or decryption tool, but are less effective in that role when compared to more specialized devices.

Repeater Pistol: Repeaters are relatively recent technology, based on plasma technology. Repeaters use a magnetic field to contain and fire a hot plasma bolt, which is capable of burning through most materials in short order. However, Repeaters are also far less accurate than more conventional firearms, and the process of reloading a repeater is much longer and more complex than most weapons.

Rustboot: A Martian colloquialism, originally referring to a careless or stupid individual who failed to clean their boots (and thus remove the infamously abrasive Martian soil) before entering a building. The term's meaning has evolved over time, and it is now used a generic insult, and has the same general meaning as words like "hick" or "redneck".

Slouch-O-Productions: A major film studio, known for their production of action and adventure movies.

Stimpack: The Alterran-developed stimpack is a commonly used field medicine, stimpacks are powerful painkillers that promote rapid healing of injured tissues. They also provide a slight boost to the user's strength and reaction time. They are only intended to keep a soldier alive and fighting for a few minutes, and cannot repair severe injuries or mortal wounds.

UC: The United Colonies, the governing body controlling all human-settled planets (approximately 500). Capital is Earth, and total number of citizens is approximately seven hundred billion.

UCM: United Colonial Militia is functionally similar to 21st century organizations like the US National Guard, and is intended to function as the first line of defense for a planet and to be the backbone of relief efforts during a natural disaster or other crisis. Unlike the Imperial Guard or Planetary Defense Force, the UF and MC organizations that are generally similar to the UCM, the UCM will also be deployed in an offensive role, usually to give UCMC forces with reserve/garrison units or to provide Marines with artillery or air support (the Marines have very few of either, normally relying on the Navy for fire support).

Uprisings: A series of violent revolts against UC authority, which occurred with varying strength across dozens of planets, and resulting in a nine year war between revolting colonists and the UC military. The planets of Equinox, Troy, and Praetoria were the most rebellious and were the site of the war's most brutal battles. The Uprisings were eventually put down by the UC in 2360.

Vular: See Data File: Vular (next chapter) for full information.


	4. Data Files

VULAR

History:

The Vular were first encountered by the current galactic powers in 2200, when the mining colony Alpha Five inadvertently unsealed a dormant Vular hive. The colony was wiped out, along with near 75% of the UC relief force sent to investigate. After the fiasco, the UC reorganized, redesigning its organization to better defeat any future incursions. The UC's preparations were put to the test sixty years later, when dozens of Hives became active across the frontier, and scores of colonies were under siege. Fortunately, the UC was able to repel the incursions, and destroy the infestations.

In the modern age, the Vular remain dangerous, especial to smaller, poorly defended colonies. Due to a the particulars of Vular biology and the large garrisons of militia personal, Vular are rarely able to establish a presence on larger planetary colonies, having more success on moons or asteroids.

Origins:

The origin of the Vular species is unknown. Given they lack any method of space travel, aside from hitching rides on unsuspecting starships, it remains unknown how they have managed to seed hives on dozens of planets and asteroids. One common theory is that they once possessed the means to travel among the stars, but somehow lost the ability to do so. Another theory, supported by a number of military personal, is that the Vular are/where biological weapons of some kind, set up in hives as a defense to prevent intruders from setting up colonies in certain regions, or used to wipe out an enemy of some kind, then abandoned once their mission was complete. There are other theories, ranging from the Vular being created by terrorists, and the inevitable accusation that they were created by any number of alleged conspiracies or secret organizations.

General Biology:

The Vular are widely believed to be insectoid in nature, and their appearance and the various names of the different Vular forms support this perception. However, the Vular are actually warm blooded mammals, though given the number of traits they share with other forms of life, the misperception is quite understandable. The Vular are also thought by many to be sentient, but a number of research projects and evidence from the field have established that they are not. However, they are remarkably intelligent, and are quite adapt at hunting even well-armed opponents, instinctively hiding until they can emerge and overrun defenders. Perhaps their most dangerous trait is that any Vular, from a simple drone to a mighty tank, can metamorphosis into a queen, letting a Vular swarm arise anywhere the Vular have established a foothold.

Most Vular share a number of common traits. They possess both an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton, and have muscles much stronger and denser than most creatures. Their mouths are circular, which makes the resulting concave bite wounds very difficult to treat. Vular claws are also oddly shaped and leave hard to close puncture wounds. They have poor to no hearing, and appear to lack a sense of smell. They see in infrared, and their blood is toxic to most life. Bizarrely, Vular blood also has a number of addictive properties. They also have a number of redundant organs, which coupled with their twin skeletons makes them far more resistant to injury then would be apparent. Given the bizarre mix of traits possessed by the Vular, and how incredibly dangerous they have proven to be, one can see why some believe them to be unnaturally created.

Vular Subtypes:

The Vular are a species with a number of distinctive forms, much like Earth ants or Alterran wasps.

Drones are the most common form, and compose around 90% of the average hive. They stand about half a meter tall, and are fully a meter long from head to tall, and mass in at almost 135 pounds. They are semi- quadrupedal, normal walking on four legs. However, when they encounter a threat, they will use their forelegs to attack. They are remarkable tough for a creature of their size, capable of shrugging off moderate amounts of gunfire. Their thick carapace is almost immune to handgun rounds, and rifles can have a tough time punching through. They have two hearts and a pair of lungs, though they only need one of each for a creature of their size. Their redundant organs make them much harder to kill, and since if one lung or heart is destroyed, they have a backup. However, they are not very nimble, as their exoskeleton limits their movement.

Soldiers are the only other Vular form to be commonly encountered, and they make up around 9% of the average hive. They are two meters tall and a little more than three meters long. They share the same semi-quadrupedal walking style and redundant organs of drones, and in fact they often behave like oversized drones. Given their greater size, they are naturally much tougher than drones. Their carapace is fully immune to most pistol rounds, and even high powered rifle rounds will only break through once out of every three or four hits. They have much longer claws that drones (Soldier claws are about half a meter long, Drone claws are about six inches), and can bite through grade three body armor with ease. However, they have very poor mobility, due to their sheer mass. Soldiers are of only marginal effectiveness at normal gravity, and accounted for only a fraction of UC losses during the 2260 infestations. Soldiers are much more effective in spaceborne low-gravity environments, or in tight spaces where they can use their increased size to prevent enemies from out-maneuvering them.

Vular Tanks are extremely rare. They are massive creatures, perhaps a meter and a half tall and four meters long, but weighting more than a ton and a half. They have no apparent sense of sight (lacking even the thermal vision most of their kin possess), and instead use some form of echolocation to find targets. Their massive claws are extremely sharp, and are coupled with muscles strong enough to let them cleave through even the heaviest body armor. An extremely thick exoskeleton makes them virtually indestructible, with only heavy weapons having a chance to punch through. They are not found on planets, as they would be crushed under their own weight if subjected to normal gravity. They can only grow in low gravity environments.

Vular queens are the rarest of all, with only one or two per hive. They are visually similar to Soldiers, with only the color pattern on their carapaces telling them apart. However, queens have many biological differences. While they share their massive, scythe-like claw with Soldiers, the muscles behind those claws are weaker, with field reports saying that the queen's claws are only useful as blunt weapons, and the queens cannot effectively employ them as cutting weapons. Queens also have a much thinner carapace, and lack the redundant organs of other Vular subtypes. The reason for all of these changes is to make room for the queen's reproductive and egg-laying systems. Queens are not very deadly combatants by Vular standards, but are almost always located within the heart of the Vular hatchery, and are thus surrounded by dozens of drones (which would normally be tending to the eggs, but should an intruder enter the egg chambers, will attack with as much ferocity as the rest of their kind).

There are other forms of Vular rumored to exist, though little evidence supports such rumors. Rumors of human looking Vular called Sirens that sneak up and ambush their prey, massive wormlike leviathans that can crush tanks and swallow men whole, invisible creatures called stalkers, and other rumors even more fantastic. It need not be said that most biologists do not buy into such rumors, and no physical evidence has yet to surface to support claims of their existence.

Vular Behavior:

Vular exhibit a number of unusual behaviors. Much of the information regarding their behavior comes from combat recordings, as research studies focusing on Vular are extremely dangerous and rarely successful.

All Vular are extremely aggressive, and will usually attack non-Vular on sight. They have an instinctive understanding of combat, to the point that newborn drones have been observed to use tactics like flanking and diversionary attacks. Vular are also disturbingly good at threat assessment, easily picking out the most dangerous members of a military formation and targeting those individuals. They have also been observed to target medical personal and officers, even when other soldiers are more vulnerable. Finally, the Vular are terrifyingly skilled at circumventing body armor, having been seen to smash through chestplates and pry off helmets instead of attacking other, exposed portions of a soldier's body.

The Vular also demonstrate a strong understanding of biology. Vular drones and Soldiers will instinctively target the major blood vessels and vital organs of their prey (and have been observed to tailor their attacks based on which one they are going for, using slashes against blood vessels, and stabbing at organs), and are even known to use different tactics against different species. Leading biologists have suggested that the Vular use their thermal vision to locate key organs and veins, which is a plausible and even likely theory. However, the Vular do not appear to possess the reasoning ability to realize that targeting the vital organs will be more effective than randomly stabbing a victim, or that a slash across the throat will be more deadly than one across the torso.

Vular frequently engage in sharpening behavior, scratching their claws against hard surfaces to make them more lethal. Deep gouges and scratches in rocks are a tell-tale sign that Vular are active nearby.

Vular Soldiers and Drones display a noticeable reluctance to attack when confronted by flamethrowers. As they don't exhibit any other fear of fire, researchers do not believe this is a sign that they recognize the danger of fire. Rather, they believe that since the Vular see in the thermal vision, the Vular perceive flamethrowers as part of the person holding it. Thus, the Vular see a normal, human sized target, which frequently grows several times its size, every time they get near it. As a result, they avoid engaging. Vular Tanks are not deterred by flamethrowers, as they use a different sensory system then other Vular, and Vular will still attack flamethrower wield infantry (but they will usually attack other personal in the area first).

Despite lacking any way to perceive it, Vular are bizarrely fond of lurking in dark spaces. In fact, Vular excel at sneaking about, in spite of the fact that their sensory organs are not capable of detecting darkness. Some biologists believe that Vular must possess some form of light detection, as they cannot imagine any other way the Vular would be so adapt at find dark, hidden spaces to lurk in. However, no trace of such an ability has yet to be found. As Vular do not noticeable react to light sources (like the flashlights of military forces), this theory is not given much credence by most experts in the field.

Despite almost supernatural sense in some regards, like the aforementioned ability to find hidden spaces to lurk in, the Vular can also be incredibly oblivious to nearby threats. Their poor hearing has frequently allowed military forces to ambush concentrations of Vular one at a time, without attracting attention of nearby Vular.


End file.
